mad max: beyond thunderdome

i saw the first mad max movie, "MAD MAX" (1978 or 79) in seventh or eighth grade and the second movie, "THE ROAD WARRIOR" (1980 or 81) in ninth or tenth grade. this movie, "MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME" (1985) is the third and final installment in the mad max series. basically, mel gibson is mad max, a badass desert wanderer in post-apocalyptic australia. in the first movie he's trying to uphold peace while a biker gang fucks everything up. in the second movie, he's trying to find gas since none is left. in the third movie, there's no real goal. it's completely ridiculous, and the plot is so weird and convoluted that it can only be described in full. i just got done watching the movie about half an hour ago, my mind is totally overcome by how shockingly absurd it was. here we go:


the movie begins with max riding a wagon through the desert wasteland, which is pulled by a fleet of camels. a plane swoops down (which is driven by a man and his young son, the only character returning from a previous mad max movie) and knocks max off of the cart. the surprise startles the camels, prompting them to run wildly, leaving max in the dust. the plane swoops down a second time and the man jumps out of the plane and on to the drivers seat of the cart, effectively stealing max's transportation and only supplies in the desert.

max wanders to 'bartertown,' where he asks the teller at the town's front desk if his wagon or camels had been seen. max offers his 'skills' in general badassery as a trading token for any information regarding his stuff. he is led to tina turner aka 'aunty,' who is the leader of the town. she created the town, but she has a problem. the town is powered by a methane gas factory beneath the town, and the gas is derived from the shit of a vast amount of pigs that are shuffled around in caves underground. and the powerplant is run by a guy named master, who is a real bastard. master has the power to shut off the power whenever he wants and tina turner is tired of it. tina wants max to kill master so that she can resume complete power over bartertown and all will be copesetic in the wasteland. this would be easy for max, but master is guarded by blaster, a huge brute with a giant metal helmet.




master is the little guy on top, blaster is the big guy



max needs to kill this bro. there is only one lawful way to kill a man in bartertown, and that is through a challenge in THUNDERDOME. thunderdome is a large semicircular cage enclosure, and it is here that the men of bartertown fight out their differences to the death. this is the main attraction at bartertown, and it seems that all of the residents attend each match. tina turner calls for the thunderdome match, and all of the citizens of bartertown begin chanting "TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES" throughout the match. weapons are scattered throughout the cage, and max/blaster are attached to long bungee cords that leave them dangling barely above the ground. the men fight, max eventually knocks off blasters helmet with a sledgehammer, revealing the face of a mentally retarded person. max stops, unable to kill a man who is not in his 'right mind.' master runs to blasters aid, claiming that the fight should end. tina's minions shoot blaster with some arrows, blaster dies. master becomes a slave to tina.



i didn't understand why the movie didn't end here.

since max didn't finish the fight, he is forced into punishment. "BREAK THE DEAL, FACE THE WHEEL," as they say. max must spin a wheel with varying punishments on it, death, life imprisonment, etc... max ends up with something called "GULAG." his punishment truly makes no sense. he is strapped onto a horse backwards, blindfolded (sort of) by a giant mardi gras mask that sort of resembles alfred e. neuman, and the horse is kicked off into the desert. truly, you must see it to believe it.



the horse eventually keels over and dies, and max frees himself of his bindings only to find himself stranded in the desert with nowhere to go. he wanders for a while, but eventually lays down and passes out(/dies?). after a while he is discovered by a desert woman, who believes that max was some sort of prophet and takes his body back to her camp. the young woman (maybe twenty years old?) is the leader of what seems to be an army of children


there's actually like a hundred kids at this camp - note the staff with the record on it

max is unconscious/dead for days, and eventually he just wakes up and freaks out that he's being held by a bunch of kids. he goes with the flow, however, and listens to the woman ramble some tale about how max is a jet pilot named d.l. walker who will take the kids to his plane and fly them to some sort of paradise (the world before the apocalypse). max says he isn't this walker bro, and that he has no plane and that he isn't a prophet. however, when max throws his hat up in the air, the spirits of the desert blow the kids' kite up into the air. the kids lose their minds, and follow the kite off into the desert. max appears to have nothing better to do, so he follows the kids. the find the wreckage of some old 747 type plane, which is obviously no use. they return to camp.

some kids run off in the middle of the night because they no longer think max is the prophet that they originally thought he was, and the rest of the kids are worried that they'll die. the kids at camp give max some water and ask him to go find the runaways, two or three kids follow max. max says he'll bring all of the kids back safely.

they soon find the runaways, max saves one of the kids from dying in quicksand. one of the kids sees the lights of bartertown off in the distance, max decides for inexplicable reasons that going back to bartertown is the only hope for survival.

max and the group sneak in through bartertown's sewage system (it's built on sand?). they see master slaving away over some pigs and some of tina's minions being douche bags. for some reason the kids decide that they must save master (who was the enemy at the beginning). the kids jump out and grab master, max kills some of the minions, but many more follow when they hear gunshots. bartertown's energy plant is built around a working train in the central cave, and most of the seemingly important tubes connect to the train. the kids, max, master, and this bro named 'pig killer' jump on the train and try to get away. tina sees all of this nonsense from her lair via periscope, and she sends many of her minions after the train on go-karts. when the train pulls away it totally fucks up bartertown's power, and the whole town explodes.

a road battle ensues; lots of carts full of tina's minions try to get master back from max n' friends, max tries to fend them all off. he kills off the first wave, and the train reaches a dead end. max slams on the train-brakes, there's a lil kid on a mound of dirt in front of the train with two rifles. the kid claims it's a stick-up, but when he sees that another, much larger wave of carts on the horizon he ducks into the dunes. max n' friends follow, finding a rope ladder down to another house-like settlement. it turns out that these people are the same people from the beginning who took max's wagon, and max is pissed. max forces the man to get his plane and get the kids and master to safety.

the plane leaves, but max has to stay behind. max kills most of the carts, but tina remains. she pulls up to max and basically says "good shit, bro" and leaves. the movie ends with the kids finding the wasteland of a city (sydney, australia?) and setting up camp there. the end.








what happened to the rest of the kids?
why did bartertown explode?
how can a town be sustained by the methane gas the come off of pig shit?
why the hell did they want to save master?
why did tina turner found a town?
why does thunderdome exist?
why did the kids believe that mad max was a prophet?
how did max come back from the dead?
why does gulag (a soviet prison camp) mean horseride into the desert with a ridiculous helmet on?
how does a settlement of children even exist? how did it start?
why was bartertown's powerplant built on a train? a working train that was on tracks?
why does this movie have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the other two movies?
why didn't the movie end after the original tina vs. master plot was resolved?
why was tina tuner ever a successful entertainer?

so many questions. i'm sorry if i ruined the movie for you, but you should really go watch it, you'll probably laugh a lot. it's totally ridiculous. seriously. just watch it.